


Grist For The Mill

by maaaaa



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23672194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maaaaa/pseuds/maaaaa
Relationships: Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg
Kudos: 5





	Grist For The Mill

“’S,up Jim?” Blair inquired in response to the look Jim chucked his way upon entering the loft.

Jim acknowledged Blair’s question with a snort and a shrug, as if Blair was well aware of what was up.

Blair plucked his glasses off and dropped them on top of the pile of papers he’d been grading. He slid his chair away from the table, pushed his sleeves up, and crossed his arms. He waited until Jim grabbed a beer from the fridge before asking again, a bit more pointedly.

“’S,up?”

Jim popped the cap off the bottle, leaned against the counter, and took a few long, slow gulps before answering.

“Had a visit this afternoon from an old friend from my Vice days. Hansen. Know him?”

“Yeah, sure, burly guy, balding, slanty eyes, right? Treats the working girls down on Fifth decently, doesn’t like me much?”

“He thinks you’re a twerp.”

Blair’s face brightened into an amused, quizzical twist.

“A twerp? He said that?”

“Actually, what he said, what he hunted me down today to tell me was, and I quote, ‘Scuttlebutt is you’re boffing that long haired little twerp. That true?’”

“W-what?” Blair spluttered in amusement, grinning from ear to ear. “What’d you say?”

Jim shot Blair a nasty scowl, which packed no punch at all.

“I denied it.”

Blair’s lips twitched and his eyebrows asked the questions before the words left his mouth.

“You did? Why?”

“Because I don’t boff, that’s why,” Jim answered curtly. “I might fool around, I might screw, I might fuck,” he punctuated each euphemism by twirling his beer bottle, “heck, I might even do the nasty. But I do not boff.”

Blair was nodding, his features deceptively placid, seemingly taking Jim’s words seriously.

Jim took a moment to breathe deeply and take a good look at Blair.

He was wearing a ratty old light blue sweater and the jeans Jim knew by scent were the ones with the frayed hems and seams and an almost-there tear right across the seat. He shifted his stance, to relieve the sudden tightness in his own jeans, and tilted his bottle toward Blair; wiggling it by way of asking did he want one.

“Sure, I’m about done here,” Blair answered, abandoning the mess in front of him with a wave of his hand.

Jim snagged another beer and crossed the room. He handed the bottle to Blair and then perched his butt on the corner of the table, casually resting his free hand on his thigh.

When he was reasonably sure he had Blair’s attention Jim remarked, “I decided to get to the bottom of it.”

“Bottom of it?” Blair echoed.

“Yeah,” Jim said, shaking his head meaningfully, a non-committal grimace etched on his face. “Find out where the rumor started.”

Blair perked up. He stood, and paced away, giving Jim a good view of the seat of his tattered jeans. He took a few swigs of beer, bounced on the balls of his feet a few times, and then turned to face Jim, grinning again. He was all together enjoying this way too much for Jim’s liking.

“How’re you gonna do that?” he finally asked, when it became obvious Jim wasn’t about to give without Blair at least making a pretense at playing along.

Jim rolled his eyes. “Oh for chrissake, Sandburg---,”

“Oh right. You’re a detective. Right. Right. So?”

“So?”

Blair prompted Jim to continue by waving his bottle.

Jim took another deep, this time exasperated, breath and gave Blair the low down.

“Already done.”

He waited; his body language fairly shouting that he expected some sort of reaction that Blair apparently wasn’t going to give, so he continued.

“Hansen heard it from Donohue in Tech Services, who overheard Talbot and Deak in the hallway outside Homicide, who picked it up in the PD garage where Lestor, Schumacher, and Baxter were laying odds on which of us plays catcher after they heard it from Sonia, the doughnut cart girl, who,” Jim paused, squared his shoulders, narrowed his eyes at Blair and stated emphatically, “got it straight from the horse’s mouth.”

Blair’s mouth dropped open and his eyes bugged, then scrunched merrily before bugging again.

“Whoa.”

Jim slammed his bottle on the table, got to his feet, and threw his hands in the air. “That’s it? Whoa? That’s all you’ve got to say? You start a rumor about us and that’s all you’ve got to say?”

Blair thought about that for a split second.

“Well, whoa, and wow. Who’d a thought that news travels that fast on the PD grapevine? I only talked to Sonia yesterday morning. I might just have to do a little research. There might be a paper---,”

Jim fisted his hands on his hips and shook his head disbelievingly.

“Sandburg,” he growled, his voice tight and gravelly.

Blair moved closer to Jim, so close Jim could feel the threadbare softness of those damn jeans whooshing toward him.

“Who said I started the rumor, detective?” Blair said, his voice whisper-soft and calm, using the word detective like a challenge.

“Huh?” was Jim’s eloquent comeback.

Blair’s voice picked up momentum and volume.

“All I did was squash a really, really nasty rumor that Gladys down in Records told me. And believe me, Jim, you oughta be grateful I did, because that little lady was ready to rearrange certain parts of your anatomy, based on what she’d heard from Wagner over in Traffic about how you collect the rent from me, if you get my drift.”

Jim closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.

“And how, exactly, did you squash that little rumor by telling people I boff you?” he exploded incredulously.

Blair’s features corkscrewed merrily once again, his lips sputtering in derisive dismissal of Jim’s astonishment.

“Boff is kinder, gentler, don’t you think? Makes it sound mutual, not like you’re taking it out in trade. Oh, wait. I’m sorry,” his voice dripping with wounded innocence, “would you rather I’d said I was boffing you?”

Jim opened one eye, squinting menacingly. The effect was second rate at best, the rest of his body already slipping into relaxed resignation.

“You know If I were the top in this relationship, your hiney’d be roasted right about now”, he commented dryly.

But he was outgunned by the look of unrepentant glee on Blair’s face.

So he stripped, sighed happily, and knelt at Blair’s side.


End file.
